News tagged with otters

If you want to find out about the shy Eurasian otter, its droppings are a fascinating source of information. By isolating DNA from otter droppings – known as spraint – researchers can not only identify individual animals ...

Giant otters may have a vocal repertoire with 22 distinct vocalization types produced by adults and 11 neonate vocalization types, according to a study published November 12, 2014 in the open-access journal PLOS ONE by Christina ...

A team of researchers with members from the U.S., Germany and Kuwait has found that sea otter dental enamel is approximately two and a half times as strong as human dental enamel. In their study published in the journal Biology ...

(Phys.org) —The spread of diseases from land animals to sea otters and other marine mammals is aided and abetted by gelatinous, sticky polymers produced by seaweed, reports a research team headed by a UC Davis veterinary ...

When a sea otter wants to rest, it wraps a piece of kelp around its body to hold itself steady among the rolling waves. Likewise, California's sea otter numbers are holding steady despite many forces pushing against their ...

(Phys.org) —After studying unusual skin lesions seen in two orphaned sea otter pups, University of Florida scientists and their collaborators have identified a previously unknown poxvirus in the infected animals.

Parents often complain that child-rearing is exhausting, but consider the poor sea otter mom. By the time a sea otter pup is weaned, its mother may be so depleted physiologically that she is unable to survive the stress of ...

Northern sea otters living off the coast of Washington state were infected with the same H1N1 flu virus that caused the world-wide pandemic in 2009, according to a new U.S. Geological Survey and Centers for Disease Control ...